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Horizon Forbidden West A Great Sequel That Harnesses The Power Of The PS5

Story
8
Graphics
9.5
Content
9.5
Gameplay
8
Reader Rating0 Votes
0
Pros
Harnesses the power of the PS5
Amazing graphics
Great gameplay
Tons of content
Cons
Game hindering bugs
Draggy exploration areas
8.8

5 years and 1 console generation later, Guerilla Games has finally launched the sequel to their open-world single player video game Horizon Zero Dawn, aptly named: Horizon Forbidden West.

Following its title, the story follows the main character from the first game, Aloy, as she travels to the Forbidden West to continue her journey to save the world.

At its core, Horizon Forbidden West is still a fun mash up of exploration, hunting machines and gathering loot and supplies. However, it is a lot more refined with many more mechanics that come to light with new types of tools and weapons at your disposal.

However, I’m gonna say it right off the bat, Horizon Forbidden West does not, in any way, try to reinvent or revolutionise the gameplay from the first game. If you did not find the first game your cup of tea this probably won’t be either. But, if you did, you’d probably love it.

The game takes place 6 months after the first one, putting the pressure on for Aloy as she must try to solve what’s causing Gaia (earth) to decay from the spreading plague.

If you’re new to the franchise, I do think that the story can be more or less impossible to follow. Even with the little cutscene recap they give you at the start of the game, there’s just so much context and lore mentioned that either you’d need to play the first game to follow, or you’re going to need to at least watch a recap video on YouTube.

As for returning players, like myself, I do find the overarching story a little more tight than the previous game and most of the side quest stories don’t feel like fillers either. That being said, given the sheer size of the world and the amount of things to explore, the story itself can be sometimes forgotten.

The two areas that Horizon Forbidden West truly shine I feel are the graphics, which not only cover beautiful looking environmental areas and character models, but even facial expressions are captured shockingly well. And gameplay which is so smooth and satisfying especially during combat.

These two factors simply go hand in hand as the beautifully realistic graphics make firing arrows feel so fluid along with enemy combat movements. Topping it off with the haptic feedback coming through the Dualsense controller every time you nock an arrow to feeling environmental changes.

All these factors make you want to keep throwing yourself into battle to test your mettle against stronger machines as you know that it’ll just look amazing on screen.

That being said, Horizon Forbidden West is no stranger to being a pretty buggy launch day game. I have experienced markers that didn’t get removed from the map after finishing quests or clearing obstacles. Quests that don’t move forward unless you reset, and I’ve been trapped in dead machines a few times after killing them. These all required resets as well.

On top of these bugs, I do also feel that some of the area for exploration could have been a tad shorter or less cumbersome as I do feel that the climbing mechanic isn’t as intuitive as compared to a game like Assassin’s Creed. This did make things a lot more tiring and stretched out especially if you miss a jump or accidentally jump wrongly.

Overall, despite the bugs and slightly tiresome exploration areas, I still do think Horizon Forbidden West is a must have for PlayStation 5 owners as not only is it still an amazing game it also does truly showcase the potential and power of the PS5.